


i guess i take after my mother

by Xanisis



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: (but shippier), F/M, Season/Series 01, What Happened?, cries because of these two idiots, i originally had a lot of hope, i wrote this while binge watching, is mainly canon compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-14
Updated: 2015-01-14
Packaged: 2018-03-07 12:06:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3173324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xanisis/pseuds/Xanisis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s almost like a game they play, this pretending not to notice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i guess i take after my mother

“You can’t send these agents into the field. They’re helpless,” Ward says, nodding his head towards Fitz and Jemma.

“Hey,” Fitz exclaims automatically. “Standing right here, Mr. Douchepants.”

Jemma wants to add something too, about being perfectly capable, thank you very much, but honestly, she’s more scared of the field than she would like to admit. It’s different than she’d imagined, different from the safety and security of her lab. When she signed up, she didn’t realize that working for SHIELD would be quite so… dangerous.

Coulson looks at them with his practiced gaze, analytical and kind.

“Well, I guess they need some training then. You all passed your SHIELD physicals, didn’t you?”

“Technically,” Jemma says, crossing her arms, feeling suddenly defensive. She’s a scientist after all, not a specialist.

“Very nearly passed,” Fitz adds.

Grant sighs. He seems to perpetually exist in a state somewhere between vigilance and annoyance, but when he looks over at them, he seems genuinely concerned, so that counts for something. 

 

.

 

Ward makes them run on the treadmill. Jemma hates the treadmill. Her knees wobble and her heart feels like it’s about to burst out of her chest and while she can pinpoint each one of her muscles that aches, can name the fluids that cause them to burn, that doesn’t make it any less painful.

After that, there’s sit ups and pull ups, which cause a whole new series of aches, and then the punching bag, which bruises her hands and makes her shoulders burn.

“I don’t really get why we’re doing this,” Fitz says, panting from exhaustion. Neither of them is really used to physical labor.

“Because when you’re in the field,” Ward says, arms crossed over his chest and expression placid. “I don’t want you keeling over if we get into any sort of situation, which we most likely will. And in the state you’re in right now, you wouldn’t last five minutes, let alone long enough for us to get you safely out.”

“That’s sweet,” Fitz says with a sardonic smile.

“It kind of is, actually,” Jemma replies.

Fitz looks at her like she’s betrayed him.

“What?” she asks. “It doesn’t hurt to be prepared. Like that time when we spent six days in the lab preparing for Professor McLellans final exam, now that was at least as painful as this.”

Fitz shrugs. Jemma finishes her last rep of sit ups, moving to push herself to her feet with a groan. Ward offers her his hand, pulling her to her feet. She almost crashes into him, hands falling to his chest, which is…nice. And very defined. Not that she’s trying to grope him or anything, but his muscle index is quite impressive, just from an objective perspective

“You alright there, Simmons?” he asks her.

“Perfectly,” she says, voice a note higher than usual.

She doesn’t really think she’s fooled him into believing she’s unaffected, because he’s Grant “eyes of a hawk” Ward, but they both pretend that she has..

 

.

 

If she ever thought about it and by it she means them, Ward and Simmons, and she’s not saying that she has, but if she ever did, she would think: heck yes but utterly impossible. Ward’s always given off this untouchable vibe. They kind of make fun of him for it it, grumpy Ward and all that, but they all sort of love him, you know?

 

.

 

A mug of tea appears in front of her.

“Still awake?” Ward asks.

“Don’t,” she exclaims, arms flailing, trying to move the tea as far away from the vials in front of her as possible, because that would be bad, like catastrophic bad, like she doesn’t even want to think of the consequences of the blend of antibodies and Earl Gray in her lab bad.

She shudders.

He raises an eyebrow.

“Thank you,” she says, realizing belatedly that that’s probably the proper response when someone makes you tea at three in the morning.

She brushes her hair away from her face, knowing that she once again came across as a total ditz completely incapable of normal social interaction. She wishes she would stop doing that. This is why she doesn’t talk to anyone besides Fitz.

“What are you doing up so late, Agent Ward?” she asks, leaning back against the lab table and taking a sip of her tea, two sugars and no milk, a squeeze of lemon. Her exact order. She’s kind of surprised that he knows something about her as inconsequential as her tea preferences, but then again he’s Ward. He notices everything.

“Couldn’t sleep,” he says in response to her question.

There’s something haunted in his eyes.

If she were Skye, she would question him about his past or why he’s talking to her or a million other things that she can’t quite think of at the moment, but would sound important and deep, but she still feels kind of like a child, a side effect of always being the youngest in the group, and the only person she’s really comfortable enough to ask her questions to is Fitz.

“It’s probably something to do with your sleep patterns,” she says instead, “or there might be a chemical imbalance in your brain. I could do a quick scan if you’d like, it wouldn’t take me long to isolate the irregularities. Or, you know, I could always give you a sedative. That would put you right to sleep.”

Ward just laughs and Jemma awkwardly laughs along with him, looking at him with hesitant eyes. Maybe this is what bonding is supposed to feel like. She’s never been very good at it, but then again, she doesn’t think he’s much better.

“Thank you,” he says, placing a hand on her arm. Her eyes flash down to it briefly, she thinks she can almost feel the warmth of his skin through her sweater, which is ridiculous of course. His hands would have to be astronomically warm in order for her to feel anything through her many layers, but still…

“Anytime,” she says, breaking the contact and flitting about the lab, rearranging useless items as if nothing has happened.

It’s almost like a game they play, this pretending not to notice.

 

.

 

She gets stuck in the dark, caged in all sides, trying to feel her way out. She doesn’t go out in the field that often and it figures that the only time she’s let out alone, she gets locked up, trying fruitlessly to find her way to an exit, feet cautious and hands shaking. She feels a bit like the children in that fairy tale, dropping breadcrumbs for the birds to pick away. She feels a bit like she’s going to die in this room.

She breathes heavily through the commlink, trying to steady her heart, keep her brain focused.

“Simmons,” she hears through the comm, Ward’s voice. “Are you alright?”

“Yes. Yes. Of course. I’m fine. I can’t really find out where I am or see anything, but I’m fine.”

She hears him curse and then the sound of flesh meeting flesh. It’s the tiniest bit terrifying.

“I’m coming to find you,” he says.

When the door bursts open, light flooding the darkened space, she throws herself at him, not because it’s Ward, but because human contact has been known to have a calming effect. She tries not to relish the way his body feels against hers when his arms wrap around her waist, briefly pulling her flush against him.

“We’ve got to go,” he says, releasing her and then tugging her by the hand and pulling her out after him.

She follows where he leads.

 

.

  

“You were very brave today,” he says, dropping into the seat next to her and handing her a cup of tea.

She wonders if this is going to become a habit between them.

She still feels shaken up, rattled, like she doesn’t quite fit with this job.

She tries for a laugh to lighten the mood, but it comes out stilted and Ward’s eyes just tighten with worry.

“Thank you, Agent Ward,” she says finally, taking a sip of her tea, trying not to wince at the scalding temperature, “for what you did today.”

“Grant,” he says.

“What?”

He clears his throat, rubs the back of his neck. “You can call me Grant. And it was nothing. I was just doing my job.”

“Well, I mean, it wasn’t really nothing. You did save my life after all and I mean the statistically probability of all of us getting out uninjured was infinitesimal, but you did it and-”

“Simmons,” he says, “I’m glad you’re alright.”

“Jemma,” she blurts out, “is my name.”

“Good to know,” he says.

His eyes sparkle in a way that kind of sort of makes her heart do a thing that doesn’t have a scientific explanation, maybe there’s something about hormones and emotional outputs from the brain, but she can’t quite grasp it right now.

He pats her knee and stands up. She blushes and ducks her head, feels like she’s seventeen again.

“Good night, Jemma,” he says.

 

.

 

She’s falling and falling and falling, the wind wisping the screams from her throat, and then she sees him flying towards her and if she believed in God, she might mistake him for an angel.

She tries to say his name, because this is something like a suicide mission and she didn’t intend for anyone to die but her, but the word gets caught in her throat.

 _Grant_.

He hits her hard and they’re all a scramble of limbs as she clutches at him. In some part of her brain she’s thinking about how she never imagined that she would get this close to him, but most of her is screaming and crying and so scared. He injects her with the antiserum--honestly it’s not a vaccine, can’t anyone get it right?--and a wave of energy washes over her and she passes out.

 

.

  

She wakes up with a gasp, feels the salt burning in her throat, the rush of the waves crashing against her body, Grant’s arms wrapped around her.

“Welcome back to the land of the living,” he says, face closer to hers than she thinks it’s ever been, not that that’s the important thing in this situation, it’s just a thing. She can deal with it.

She coughs, probably a residual effect of the serum or the screaming or the seawater. Grant smoothes his hand along her back, rubbing uncharacteristically soothing circles. She wraps her arms around his neck, clings to him, tries not to be sad about the fact that somewhere along the way she lost her blazer and her sweater, which she was really rather fond of, because perspective.

Grant tightens her arms around her, hoisting her closer to his body. She’s shivering in the icy water, but somehow he’s still warm. It lends evidence to the astronomically warm theory she was testing out earlier, though logically she knows it probably has something to do with the length of time that he’s been treading water and higher natural body temperatures.

“You’re going to be fine,” he says, and when he says it, she almost believes him.

She doesn’t know how he’s keeping both of them afloat with just the movement of his legs, but she’s unbelievably grateful.

She leans closer, presses her lips to his check, tastes the salt on his skin.

“Thank you,” she says.

 

.

 

He brings her a cup of tea while they wait for the plane to come pick them back up.

“They didn’t have Earl Gray,” he says when he hands it over.

“Oh. That’s alright,” she says, “I mean the tea here is probably rubbish anyway, so it’s not like it really would have been good Earl Gray. Fitz and I generally have to order our own tea just so that it’s drinkable...” she trails off, realizing that this is probably one of those times when she should stop talking.

She awkwardly takes a sip of her tea, which tastes truly horrendous, but she tries to smile around that.

“Thanks,” she says.

There’s a softness in his eyes and she almost died today and her clothes are stiff and full of salt water and she still hasn’t really processed the situation, so she allows herself to lean against him, resting her head on his shoulder, smelling the sea on him, trying to gain some of his strength through osmosis.

 

.

 

“Is there something going on between you and,” Fitz gestures towards the cargo bay.

Jemma glances in the direction he’s pointing and sees Grant methodically attempting to destroy the punching bag, something about his intensity frightening.

“Agent Ward?” she asks, striving for casual, but knowing she’s probably nowhere near it. She really needs to get better at lying. “What? No. Of course- Why would you even say that?”

Fitz narrows his eyes.

“Because he was all like, ‘Oh look, I saved Simmons. And what did you do, you great fat loser? Nothing that’s what.’”

He looks at her, eyebrows askant, all righteous indignation.

“Well…,” Simmons says.

“Well, what?” Fitz asks, crossing his arms.

“Oh please, don’t get all offended about it, Leo. He did save me, that’s all I’m saying.”

“But I would have!”

“And I know that,” she says, patting him on the shoulder.

He still looks offended, but he’s stopped asking about Ward, so she thinks that’s probably a good thing. Not that there actually is anything going on between them, but still. She’d just rather not explain herself to Fitz, who just really wouldn’t understand. She’s not even sure she understands it. She just likes him is all. There’s nothing wrong with that, is there?

 

.

 

The thing about being a scientist and not a specialist is that there aren’t that many times when you’re in the direct line of danger. Jemma likes that about her job, the safety. But it seems like more and more often she can’t seem to avoid it. A crazed man had held a wrench to her throat today. And he’d knocked out Ward, which was something Jemma had previously considered almost impossible. It just seems to her that they’re dealing with things, so many things, that maybe they’re not quite equipped to handle.

“How’s your head?” she asks Ward, handing him a mug.

She’d guessed on his tea order.

“Thanks,” he says, wrapping his hands around the cup. Jemma can see that his knuckles are bruised and cracked, a result of the fight today. She thinks of her own hands, calloused and covered in burn marks. She supposes both their jobs exact a toll.

“I should probably take a look at it, just in case. There might be residual damage that you’re not even aware of and-”

“I’m fine, Simmons,” he says.

“It would only take a minute and it would put me at ease. I just- I want to know you’re alright.”

He sets his hand on top of hers to still it. She hadn’t noticed it was shaking.

“You’ve had a shock,” he says. “It’s natural not to be okay. He came at us where we thought we were safe. You wouldn’t be normal if you weren’t unsettled”

“Yes. Well…,” she doesn’t want to admit to weakness, especially in front of Ward, who never seems anything other than in control. She longs for his strength.

“Come on,” he says, standing from the coach and offering her a hand. “Let’s go run those tests.”

She takes it.

 

.

 

“Enjoying the fame?” he asks her, leaning against the bar table.

Jemma takes a sip of her drink and laughs. She feels better back at the academy, back where she feels safe, back where she knows what’s what, back where she doesn’t feel so dangerously out of her league.

“Just a bit,” she responds.

“Yeah, well I can tell you, it wasn’t like this at communications. This place seems pretty plush.”

“I’m Agent “no fun” Ward,” she says, adopting a mocking tone. “I slept on a rock and punched people in the face. For fun.”

His face contorts with laughter, smile cracking his face in two. Jemma finds she likes it.

Skye returns from the bar, sliding another drink across the table. Grant turns and looks at her with something like starry eyes. Jemma tries not to feel hurt. It’s not like they’re anything, she thinks, because that would be against the rules. And if it’s one thing she’s good at, it’s following the rules. She’s not like Skye, all beauty and danger and risk. She’s not like Skye at all.

 

.

 

She hasn’t slept in three days. She feels like every time she even thinks about closing her eyes, there’s something more to be doing, something else to be monitoring or researching or just...something. She’s not- she’s not a miracle worker and it would take a miracle to save Skye.

“How are you holding up?” she hears from behind her, before a mug of tea is pressed into her hands.

“She’s stabilized,” she says, not even turning towards Ward. “There’s not really anything else I can do.”

“Then go to sleep,” he says, “I’ll watch over her.”

“I can’t sleep,” she says.

She feels the tears washing over her again. She thought she’d gotten it all out of her system earlier, but it’s always brewing under the surface. She feels like everything is moving in on her, pressure building and building. She feels like she’s about to pop.

“You’re doing the best that you can,” he says, resting a hesitant hand on her shoulder.

Jemma leans into him. He lets her, wraps a firmer arm around her, doesn’t move as she presses her face against him.

“What if my best is not enough?” she says, stumbling over the words, voice cracking.

This isn’t like a test that she can study for, this is someone’s life, Skye’s life, and she can’t mess it up. She just can’t. She’s got two doctorates and she doesn’t- she doesn’t know what to do. It’s an unfamiliar feeling and she finds she really really hates it.

“It will be,” he says, which is not exactly what she wants to hear, but she supposes it will have to be good enough.

 

.

 

They always win, that’s what she tells herself. They always win, so they’re going to keep winning. Even if it doesn’t seem like it. Even if it seems like they’re going to die and there’s nothing good left in the world, no one she can really trust, she trusts the team. She has to trust the team.

 

.

 

“Oh. Sorry,” she says, when she bumps into somebody, her hands coming up to protect herself.

When she looks up and sees it’s Ward, she lets out a sigh of relief. He looks wrecked, bruises and scrapes covering all visible skin. Her fingers ache to fix it, to fix him.

Her hands flutter at her side.

“I’m sorry about… you know, Garret and all that. I can’t even imagine-”

His eyes hold a plethora of tragedies.

“Hopefully you’ll never have to,” he says.

There’s a distance between them, more than there’s ever been.

“I’m glad you’re alright though,” she says, her hand coming to rest on his shoulder.

His eyes track the movement and when they refocus on her, there’s a hint of something knowing in his expression that Jemma finds unsettling. She’d thought- she didn’t know what she’d thought.

But when she looks again, that unnerving element is gone and he’s looking at her with a soft expression. Maybe she’d imagined it.

“We seem to say that to each other a lot,” he says.

“Well, it still seems to be true, so…,” she says, trailing off.

He smiles, but it’s tight lipped and doesn’t reach his eyes.

“God, sorry,” she says. “I’m sure you want to be alone right now.”

She moves to leave, but he stops her with a hand on her arm.

“I’m glad you made it through,” he says.

“Yes. Well. We have to keep fighting, don’t we? We’re Agents of SHIELD and even this...even this doesn’t stop us, right?”

“We have to keep fighting,” he repeats.

 

.

 

Fitz has always been the emotional one. Jemma’s known that. He’s always been sensitive and it’s always been Jemma’s her job to protect him, to stop him from getting hurt. But she- she doesn’t know how to protect him from this.

She looks at the wound, the deep gouge marks in the neck, and tries to come up with another logical solution, but she doesn’t see anything. She doesn’t see how to fix this.

“Ward did this,” she says, voice breaking (and breaking and breaking).

Fitz hits the cabinet, hard enough that Jemma knows it hurt. Jemma wants to hit something too, but she knows there’s no point. There’s nothing- nothing they can do, except find Ward and then she doesn’t know.

She’s never needed many people. Sometimes she’s felt like if it was just her and Fitz and nobody else, she would be good. But she’d needed this team. She hadn’t thought she had, but when she’d almost lost Skye and she’d felt this unexplainable ache in her chest, she’d realized that they were a family, a disjointed and strange family, but a family all the same.

But that’s gone now, she realizes.

She thinks of Grant- Ward, she corrects herself, it’s easier to dissociate. She thinks of tea and smiles and the way he’d held her in the ocean, how he hadn’t let her drown. She’s drowning now, feels the tears drip down her face, tries to will them back into her eyes.

You can do this, Jemma, she tries to tell herself, but it doesn’t feel like she can.

 

.

 

She makes tea, because it’s what she’s always done when things have gone wrong.

Her hands shake as she picks up the cup, the china rattling. She can feel the ghost of a hand wrapping around hers, someone pressing the mug towards her with a soft smile and guarded eyes. Her heart aches. The tea tastes bitter on her tongue, a mixture of lemon and bergamot and sugar. It burns on the way down.

 

 


End file.
